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Badal wants Centre to seal Pak border
Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 18
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said today that Central agencies were not vigilant enough to seal the international border with Pakistan along Punjab and Kashmir, resulting in infiltration. There was an urgent need to seal the porous border to prevent mischievous elements from bringing men and material to create harm. “I have taken up the issue with the Home Minister and told the Centre that it is their duty to seal the Indian border”, he said.

Reacting to The Tribune report about Punjabi militants setting up a base in Malaysia, Badal said the police was vigilant to the prevailing situation in Punjab and in neighbouring territories that were “under fire”. “Central intelligence agencies should have informed the Punjab Police about the development in Malaysia. But it is the Punjab Police that has done the job of Central agencies by updating them about nefarious designs of subversive elements”.

Complementing the state police for doing a good job, he said security agencies in the state had failed all attempts of subversive activity.

He also ruled out any possibility of revival of militancy in Punjab saying “conditions leading to the Naxalite movement and militancy do not exist in the state now”. Militancy in Punjab in the 1980s was a result of discriminatory policies of the Centre, he added.